The Clock's Gone Crazy
by mika zero-zero twenty-one
Summary: Francoise remembers how hard old habits are to break, especially her dance habit. She also recalls how something threw off the balance in her life and how the clock went crazy over sixty years. [003centric, no pairings]


Okay, I was inspired by band. But now your question is, when aren't I? That's a good question! Seriously now. We were working on this particular song and we had to speed it up in the middle. So our teacher said to think of it like a clock, and around that time, the clock began to go crazy. Don't think this is a Successful Mission redo, cause it ain't. I don't own anything but the plot of this fic, and hang me if I say I do.

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The Clock's Gone Crazy

Yet another band-inspired one-shot

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Francoise had always known old habits to die hard. It had taken her two years to break her nail-biting habit when she was little. And it was around that time that another habit had taken its place. That habit was her dancing. She danced whenever time allowed her to, and danced to whatever she could. Then it had been records from the dance academy. Once she had gotten good enough, she'd found her own pieces and learned how to really, truly dance. It hadn't been good enough to know basic routines and advanced ones. She'd taught herself to make new ones.

It was a habit she'd been too happy to have to break.

When Black Ghost kidnapped her, she'd lost a lot of time. The world had continued to pick up its pace, like speeding up tempo in a song. When at last she had awaken and been re-named 003, it was like she'd lost the dance routine she had been writing and someone had taken over for her. Her life was no longer hers.

Then she was introduced to the other cyborgs.

They, too, felt the same as she did. The other three had also had something precious stolen from them, and Francoise had felt that her problems were only minor compared to what some of them had lost. But still, the loss of not being able to freely dance hurt her deeply. The sounds she had to listen for and the sights she had to try and find were not at all consoling to her problem. There was no music to be found anywhere. Not even in the bleeps and sirens was there any sense of rhythm. Though one could think of Black Ghost as a conductor, the orchestra he was playing with was only elementary level.

After a long time (she'd long since lost track of weeks, months and days), they were finally let out to the normal world.

It was as if someone had taken a metronome and sped the tempo up to 210, where it had only been at a steady 120 before. Cars were now much more popular, and plane travel had opened to the general public. Francoise thought that the conductor of this whole symphony had let his metronome get the best of him; this metronome that had gone completely crazy. The tempo was no longer lagging like it had been in France, it was lively and nearly ready to trip over itself as soon as one person played a wrong note. Out here, with the cars, buildings, and people, Francoise was able to find a weak rhythm to them. It was nothing to be picked up with listening for ten seconds; you had to listen for a while before you found it.

But it was there.

Now, Francoise was sitting in the Kazumi residence. She had left the base and rebelled from the organization that had remodeled her body, and was now with eight others like herself. Slowly, she rose from her seat. A CD player (she was still not very good with this sort of technology) was already turned on and playing a slow song. She began, slowly, to dance to a set routine. It had been a long time since this part of her mind had been used, and it seemed nearly rusted. Once the song finished playing, she smiled. The next song was one she was very familiar with. It was slow at first, then sped up later. She had written her own routine for it. As if it were molasses trickling from a bottle, the motions slid back into her limbs and allowed her to dance the routine to the song.

Once nearly fifteen minutes were up, the song ended.

Francoise sat down once again and turned the CD player off. She heard a single person clapping from out in the hall.

"Bravo, bravo!" 009 said, clapping and smiling. "I never knew you could dance!"

Francoise blushed. "Thank you."

"What's that song called? It sounded like the clock had gone crazy…do you use a clock in music?" 009 asked. His puzzled expression made Francoise giggle.

"Something like that."

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For all those people out there who aren't familiar with music terms, 120 and 210 are measures of beats per minute. Basically, it's how fast or slow a song is going. 120 is moderate tempo, and 210 is on steroids. A metronome is what keeps time. Please leave a review or flame and I hope to see you again soon!


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